


Connections

by Tamara_vonB



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alabama, Character(s) of Color, Developing Friendships, F/F, F/M, Female Character of Color, Florida, Friends to Lovers, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Themes, Light Angst, Louisiana, Male Character of Color, Matchmaking, Mississippi, Multi, Original Character(s), POV First Person, Reality TV, Romance, Texas, plus size character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:34:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24482842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tamara_vonB/pseuds/Tamara_vonB
Summary: A new mother agrees to go on a reality show that's supposed to be about making new connections. She's ecstatic to learn that she's allowed to bring her baby with her and only a little disappointed that she'd have to leave the people she knew behind. Ready to make new friends and find new family, she heads to Houston to begin her journey.
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's going to be like a reality TV show, but not at the same time. Like, they won't have cameras on them and they don't have to go to a diary room to update anyone on their feelings. I don't really know how to explain it except that's the only way I can think of them being together while not working or doing anything except exploring. Once I figure it out, I'll go back and change the tags if I need to.

Packing my suitcases for Houston, I glanced at Tiana's playpen to make sure she wasn't face down or playing with one of her harder toys wrong. She was happily teething on her teething ring, watching me curiously with wide brown eyes. I stuck my tongue out at her, and a bright smile lit up her face. I giggled at her happy innocence and went back to my packing, zipping up a small pocket on my suitcase. I picked up my skin-care kit and gently set it in the final empty spot in the main part of my suitcase and zipped the whole thing closed. Lifting it off my bed and setting it gently next to my doorway, I turned to Tiana and picked her up to set her on my hip. Giving her a kiss, I walked out of my room to the kitchen to begin packing her own food bag.

"Dad!" I called out, turning my head to avoid screaming in my daughter's ear. "The producers will be here in half an hour, and you said you'd watch her while I packed everything into their SUV!" I carefully put a bottle full of watered down apple juice in the diaper bag's outside pocket. The top was on the bottle, but I wasn't taking any chances. I wanted to make a good first impression since I had the chance to finally change my reputation. I wouldn't be the _whore_ who couldn't keep her legs closed; I'd be the _woman_ whose protections failed her when she just wanted a night of fun. I heard my father come lumbering down the hallway that led to his bedroom and smiled to myself, grateful he doesn't mind helping me with my accident.

A knock on the door had me scrambling to give Tiana to my father and running to open the door. A man with bright blond hair and eyes as black as night was smiling brightly at me. Next to him, a small woman holding a giant camera on her shoulder gave a slight wave before returning her hand to the bottom of the camera to steady it. My mouth gaped open in surprise. "You're early!" I laughed nervously, unprepared to do much more than that.

"Yep!" the man chirped brightly. "I was going to call you to let you know, but I figured it would be better to surprise you. Are you ready to go?"

I shook my head. "I wasn't ready for you. I expected you later. I planned on taking a shower and putting on nicer clothes before you got here. I didn't want to leave a subpar first impression," I replied honestly. I invited them in even as the man laughed in apparent mirth. The woman next to him merely smiled in thanks, pulling her lips into a thin line. They passed by me and headed straight to my dad's living room. I didn't call it mine or ours because I didn't plan on staying long enough to grow attached to it; I was planning on leaving the moment I got an apartment.

"What a quaint home you've got here! And is this your daughter?! I'll have to admit, she doesn't look too much like you," the man said. I couldn't remember his name for the life of me, and I did my best not to be put in a situation where I needed to know his name. It took a lot of thinking on my part, but I came up with a solution.

"Yeah. She takes after her father. She's got my eyes though. And a little bit of my hair. But ultimately, she has her father's looks," I agreed, joining them in the living room after locking the front door behind them. I took the time to study my baby's looks again. When I'd first given birth to her, I'd been too exhausted to really notice much about her except that she didn't really look like me. Even after six months, I still hadn't had enough of a break to catch my breath and look to hard at her. I was afraid to, if I was going to be honest with myself.

Tiana had curly hair that wasn't long enough to flop around on her forehead, but I knew it would only be a matter of time. While she would never have an afro like me, her hair would still be too curly to be mistaken for anything but natural. Her skin wasn't as dark as mine, which surprised me since I was a dark-skinned black person, but she didn't look extremely white either. She looked tan at the darkest, and I was worried no one would know she was mixed. I wanted everyone to know I was her mother, but I didn't want to look to deeply into the 'why' of the matter. I just knew that I wanted people to know she was mixed. Luckily, her eyes were like mine: a dark and rich brown like freshly watered soil. Her eyes could grow life itself in their depths, and no one could convince me otherwise.

"And she's got your lips," my father chimed in, gently playing with my daughter's mouth. It made her open it like she was trying to eat his finger, which was exactly what she did when my dad let her nibble on him. Her few teeth were sharp, but he didn't seem to mind. "She's not too white, right? All the white people I've seen never seem to have lips. And since she's got lips, it's right to say she's got more black in her than we thought."

My eyes grew wide at his statement. I practically teleported to his side as I slapped a hand over his mouth, giving the only two white people in his house a tight smile before turning back to my dad. "That was incredibly rude. I don't care how true it is or how many white people you've seen with no lips. You don't just say that to people you barely know. It's one thing to say it in the comfort of your own home with close friends. It's another thing entirely to say it in front of actual white people you don't know," I hissed, sounding very similar to an angry goose. I was trying not to scare my daughter or let the man and his camerawoman hear very well, if they could hear anything, about how embarrassed I was. My dad only shrugged in response; I quickly realised he was trying to intimidate the people from the show by saying something offensive.

"Is everything okay? I hope you're not upset by what he said. I agree with him," the man said. Dave, I finally remembered as I looked at him over my shoulder, gave me a polite smile, somehow reading the room properly now when he hadn't earlier.

I fully turned to him with a bright smile of my own, dropping my hand from my dad's mouth. "Everything's fine. You don't have to say you agree with him. He's used to being able to say whatever he wants. He's got a very good reputation in town, so everyone pretty much just lets him say whatever. Don't let him do that." My bright smile became more forced as they just stared at me before I dropped it when they nodded in agreement. I wasn't going to let my father say anything that could reflect badly on me, and I was hoping they would stop him from saying anything crazy.

I waved for them to follow me as I walked into the kitchen to resume my packing. They were two steps behind me, my father with Tiana another three, and we all reached the kitchen at relatively the same time. I began pouring snacks for Tiana into a ziploc bag.

"So who's the father?" Dave asked. I flinched at the question but didn't stop working on making sure Tiana had food.

"Not sure," I shrugged. I placed the ziploc in the diaper bag and turned to face them as casually as I could. While I wasn't ashamed to admit that I had a one-night stand with someone I didn't know, I was still embarrassed to tell people that I didn't bother to try finding out who he was when I learned I was pregnant. "I just know he was white and from out of town. I'm lucky she doesn't have any health problems from his side." I pulled a chew snack out of the box and set it alongside her clean bottles in the diaper bag.

My father put a gentle hand on my shoulder, propping Tiana on his hip, letting me know he supported me through thick and thin. I looked up at him and gave him a tight smile. Tiana decided she wanted to be in my arms instead, and I obliged her reaching hands. She immediately began playing with my hair.

"So we won't be getting any surprise visits from anyone who says they should be on the show just because they're the father?" Dave asked, trying to make absolutely sure.

All I could do was laugh. "If someone comes in demanding they be on the show because he's the father of Tiana, let security take care of him. I'm not making him pay child support; he should consider himself lucky. My daughter is no one's fifteen minutes of fame."

Dave nodded sagely; a bitter smile marred his face briefly before he shook himself of whatever memory I accidentally brought up for him. "Did you want her? Before she was born, I mean."

I stiffened and shot a look at the camera. Images of my face being plastered on every TV screen in Texas, and maybe even every screen in America, brought the hot flames of fear down my back. "I'll tell you that when it's not you who's asking."

Dave held his hands up in surrender, an amused smile on his face, and began going back into the living room to wait. "I'll let you finish packing up your baby's food before we head to Houston."

"Thank you," I replied. I handed Tiana back to my dad and returned to making sure her food was tucked neatly into her bag. I went to the pantry to grab a reusable bag to put even more food and drinks for her in it.

Dave called out from the living room, "Any time. I hope you're ready to make some connections."


	2. Chapter 2

When we arrived, I couldn't believe how big the hotel was, if I could even call it that. It was the size of a skyscraper and twice as wide. _S. Shores_ was emblazoned in gold on the top, shining brightly in the afternoon sun. I could barely keep my jaw from falling to the floor. I couldn't even begin to _fathom_ what it would be like inside. I still couldn't believe I was going to be living here for the next six months. It was like a daydream come to life, and I wasn't fully convinced my mind had followed into reality.

"You'll be living here with the others. What we did was essentially tricked out a Hilton. You'll have your own room because you have a baby, and it's the biggest room we have. Something about the presidential suite? I don't know. I didn't remodel it. I'm mainly just the messenger," Dave said, laughing when Tiana cooed at him. I could only nod in response, too stunned to form a sentence.

We pulled into the driveway where a valet was waiting, his red uniform crisp and bright underneath the overhang. When our driver got out, I had no idea who she was, she handed the boy the keys and walked inside where I was sure it was considerably cooler than outside. I was beginning to feel the humidity creep through the doors and hurried to unbuckle Tiana from her car seat so she wouldn't be forced to endure it any longer than she should have to. Dave was already getting our luggage from the trunk, his nameless camerawoman already filming again.

"Now, on the first floor is a conference room where you'll be going first. All the people you'll be meeting will be in there too. That's where we'll have meetings for any new events or if we're throwing someone else into the fray," Dave was saying, nodding his thanks to a bellboy who put my luggage on a cart. "There should be twelve of you in total, plenty of people to get to know and make a connection with. We tried to get at least two of every race: Asian, white, black, Hispanic. Our producers were really pushing us to do that. But we couldn't find any Native Americans willing to join us, which I think is a religious thing unless my knowledge is messed up."

I shrugged. I didn't have much knowledge on Native American culture. As far as I knew, they were never given the chance to get off their reservations because of the government. When I told Dave this, he nodded thoughtfully before continuing on with his explanation and heading inside. With Tiana perched on my hip, I wasn't far behind; his camerawoman was half a step between us, trying to keep us both in the video.

"We just added four more people to the list because we needed to meet the requirements before the deadline. Our producers are cool and all, but they have no concept of time. They think time is money and we were wasting money by taking too long to choose people. I don't know who they are, really, because we were in such a rush. All I really know is that they passed our criminal background check," Dave paused as he walked through the meeting door. "And it looks like we're the last ones here." I felt my face heat up as I peeked around him. Eleven pairs of eyes turned to look at us from all over the room. The others had already broken up and mingled, leaving me to fend for myself as I slid into an open seat and put Tiana on the table. I gave everyone a slight wave before turning my attention to Tiana, pulling the diaper bag onto the table to change my daughter's diaper. It felt warm and was saggy.

"Do you need some help with that?" someone asked me, sliding up to my left. I looked up and came face-to-face with an older white man with salt and pepper hair. Though his voice came out as friendly, his eyes were predatory. Thinking it was just my imagination, I gave him a polite smile even as chills crawled down my spine.

"No thank you. It's not the first time I've changed my daughter by myself. It's good practice," I said. The predatory look in his eyes became stronger, and I knew I wasn't imagining it this time. My hands stilled over Tiana's diaper as I tensed, ready to pull my daughter out of harm's way if need be.

"Okay, then. I was just wondering," the man continued at last. He gave me a smile, wiggled his fingers at Tiana, and walked away to talk to someone else. I didn't relax but continued on with changing Tiana's diaper, knowing she couldn't sit in it any longer. A minute later, she was changed and happy. I put her dirty diaper in the Meijer bag I always brought with me in case I couldn't get up to find a trash can.

We all looked up as a woman with long black hair and brown skin came into the room, her suit as sharp as the look in her eyes. Her eyes passed over us one-by-one, assessing us, and I knew she was someone in charge.

"Sit down everyone," she commanded. Everybody who was standing immediately took a seat. The older white man who'd talked to me minutes earlier sat next to me, much to my chagrin. "I want to start this off by saying I'm glad everyone was able to make it. My name is Crisy Agarwal, and I will the liaison between our producers and you. They send their best. They're upset they couldn't join, but today was meeting day, so there was no way they'd be able to make it before midnight. On to business.

"We're not like other reality shows. There's no diary room, no hidden cameras to watch you, no special spot for you to check in. Outside of the normal security cameras, the cameras that followed you all in here today are the only ones you'll see during your stay here. They will join us when I show up, but you're free to spend time as you wish without the fear of cameras watching your every move. However, we have hidden microphones all over the building except in your rooms and just outside your doors. We don't care what you do in your rooms, but we aren't going to risk your safety.

"Because you'll be living here for some time, you may ask to install your own security cameras, but only inside your rooms. While you may miss your pets, animals are not allowed on the premises. This place is not a permanent stay for anyone. This is temporary. Any questions?"


End file.
